Chasm
by sleepysheepdog
Summary: River's found a man who holds ghosts in his eyes and seems to laugh at all the world. Stuck on a deceitful planet with Wash, Zoe, and the nervous survivors of the crash, she'll find heat and death. And maybe a way out.
1. Prologue: Emergence

**Chasm**

**Disclaimer**: I couldn't own Firefly or Pitch Black even if I tried really really hard and used rope. All I've got are my incredibly good looks and some pretty words to throw around.

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><p><em>All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.<em>

Swami Vivekananda

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><p>River ran her fingers over the bruise on her shoulder curiously. She considered the omen of having her first real separation from Serenity result in a crash on a planet that positively wept, however dry it may appear.<p>

"This is why I don't trust pilots who aren't me," grumbled Wash, only just recovering his good humor after nearly dying.

His wife surveyed the area, biting the inside of her lip and working out how they all came to be stranded in such a barren wasteland.

Seeing that his captive audience wasn't quite as receptive as he'd like, Wash continued, lamenting, "Oh, sweet merciful bikini, I apologize on behalf of my wife that I will not be seeing her in you any time soon. It's not that she doesn't like you, but we have yet again descended into the madness that comes with wacky space adventures."

River cut in, staring out into the distance, "The undertow is restless and rising. Dying here will taste like a needle in the eye, like ringing bells and hunger. I'll start finding the route back to tranquility."

"Tranquility, River?" asked Zoe, a deep understanding shaking her foundations as the young woman's warning touched some instinctive awareness for danger in her. She found that wading in the waters of River's words with her often achieved a better comprehension for the both of them.

Not to mention that she could feel danger, her eyes honed to catch it in the periphery. That, if nothing else about the psychic, Zoe definitively trusted.

Wash connected to River on a more detached, affectionate level and had taken to viewing his conversations with her as battles that he hoped to win by translating everything correctly.

River ducked her head, lips tipping up, as she allowed Wash to answer, "Serenity, sugarlips. Wonder Girl's gonna find a way out of this sweltering death trap, maybe even with our help. You can intimidate the idiots who will inevitably get in our way and I can provide commentary."

Zoe was exhausted from the trip, exhausted from the memory of Mal whining like a child when they convinced the good captain (over a leisurely eight week period) to let them go, and exhausted from the fact that the only thing available to take a refreshing dip in on this planet was dirt.

And somehow, miraculously, Wash still made her grin.

"I never get to sit back and run _my_ mouth, husband."

Wash realized that the conversation had taken a very positive turn in his favor and tossed back, "Oh, you just don't know how to work with the peanut gallery like I do. You give them almonds; I give them pistachios. Plus, I enjoy having you impressed by my finesse."

"Finesse," Zoe repeated in a tone flat but sweet, "Your finesse is as impressive as your analogies."

And before Wash could protest any implied insult, she clasped a strong hand around his bicep and began propelling them to a group of survivors who appeared to be arguing over something ridiculous like—River heard Wash speculating as they walked off—who would be eaten first.

"River," Zoe called over her shoulder, "Keep safe. Stay alert. You're on…undertow duty. You know where we'll be."

River felt pleased right down to the ends of her hair that Zoe would pick her reply so carefully, so considerately, so trustingly, that she was unable to do anything but glow and nod.

The Reavers had taught the crew that River was a monster, but one willing to protect. She kept the chimera within her at bay, stroking it and sorting through the constant undercurrent of darkness in her mind.

The undercurrents of darkness in everyone's minds. A river of thoughts and wants and lost teeth; so easy to drown.

But she had fought for her lucidity even if her speech remained curvy and indirect. Three years after Miranda and she had strung her fragments together, created a River-galaxy inside of herself and admired the progress, mourned the spaces in between her stitches.

And now she would need to use her resources, her strength, and her madness to help find a way off of this planet, a thing wasted on the surface and howling below.

River watched the pilot speak to a man looking for a convict. Two selfish liars. Two scared lambs.

The further she walked, the more she realized how happy she was to be stranded with Wash and Zoe out of everyone on Serenity. They tried hard to be good to her. They didn't coddle her after her increasingly infrequent psychotic breaks. They understood, Wash sympathizing and Zoe empathizing, that Miranda had eroded her mind to some extent; it had shaped her topography and left its mark.

It had left her in shambles, dilapidated.

Something to be survived, but never revoked.

She concluded, loping across the foreign territory, that the planet was bathed in light, but felt bleak. It seemed to be a dead thing futilely trying to fight off a virus it just couldn't shake.

In the distance, she saw what could be ruins or a mirage of them. Great ribs and spines were spread over the land neatly, regal and lifeless as a graveyard, the suggestion of a fascinating history and a beautiful species.

Fearsome, at the very least.

"But not fearsome enough," she whispered, dragging a nail a careful nail down a rib, "Not fearsome enough to battle with bloodlust and win."

She could tell that trouble was coming—not in the form of a storm, but an eruption.

And she couldn't help notice, sliding her palm over ivory bone, that the remains had been picked clean.


	2. Live to Leave

Chapter 2: It Will Live to Leave

Disclaimer: If I owned Firefly or Pitch Black, I would have everything in the world, which is impossible. No one can have unrelenting beauty, a great dog, and their favorite movies and TV shows in one lifetime. And I am nothing if not fair.

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><p><em>To change one's life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.<em>

William James

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><p>"So you're telling me that we've got a maniac in our midst," Wash began jokingly and then continued more seriously, "Is this whole debacle going to end in a bloodbath or should we be comfortable with him in chains?"<p>

Johns scratched the stubble on his chin, deciding whether or not to like the man before him, seeing within him a person equal parts laughter and sobriety.

He was a good man, a crafty one, and surely no one could say that he wasn't completely wrapped up in his Amazonian wife.

Zoe, who'd been listening straight-faced and quiet as Johns warned the remaining passengers about Riddick, spoke up, "I'd like to see him, if you don't mind. I'd like to make my own assessment."

After a moment of internal debate, Johns concluded that the woman had a look about her that communicated discrete competency and controlled reserve. He could stand to let someone who could potentially slow down Riddick get a peek at the man.

He began to walk in the direction of his wayward prisoner, calling over his shoulder to the two, "Well, come on. Don't need to clean up or nothin'. He's used to filth."

"I hope he's referring to our clothes, not our characters," Wash whispered as he and Zoe cut across the desert behind the self-proclaimed officer.

Zoe had not decided how truthful the man was yet. Oh, he certainly kept that silver-tongue in his mouth honed and at the ready, but the measure of a man couldn't be decided through his words.

Her almond eyes crinkled attractively even as her mouth remained firm and straight as she replied, "Either way, he's probably referring to you."

He took her hand, a gesture as comfortable as laying in a bath after a long day and broken in after their eight years of marriage, and said, "My filth never bothered you before and I refuse to believe he's the first person who tipped you off to it."

Afterward, the only sounds heard were those of boots on twisted metal in the corpse of the ship. It had been a reliable hull and Wash still couldn't figure out how she could've given out on them.

An old girl like that, she was consistent. He would know.

Finally, they stepped into a shadowed place, a cage whose animal resided in the center. His eyes were obscured by goggles, but his face was alert.

His shoulders were so relaxed that Zoe almost winced, knowing how tense he had to be to resort to misdirection.

His voice, an oddly compelling middle ground between a growl and a purr, spoke, "Brought me toys, Johns? You know better. A woman and a man, married by the smell of it. Woman's a fighter and the man…," he bared his teeth, "…the man wants to get laid."

Zoe took a bold step forward and in a flash she could feel his eyes, probably as piercing as she imagined, on her.

"I wanted to see the threat myself. Let him know that I don't take kindly to people who want to kill me," she said, the steel plaiting her spine making its appearance without pomp or circumstance.

"You given me a reason to hurt you?" Riddick asked after a moment of careful observation.

He radiated a certain quickness, despite his size. She knew his body was waiting for the opportunity and his mind was cranking out plans. Riddick seemed to her the kind of man who had no mercy, but wouldn't strike unless someone got in his way.

Zoe lifted her chin, regally responded, "I haven't given you a reason to try."

His laughter had deep grooves in it, steep dips which reached far into his belly and pushed out thunder. It was mocking, it was appreciative, and it was benevolent.

The hair on Wash's neck stood in response and he curled his hand around his wife's, "Well, introductions have been fun, but this insatiable man is ready to help find the water."

Chuckles followed them out of the makeshift cell and he said to his wife, "I get the impression that he's a scholar and a gentleman, what about you?"

Her lips tipped up briefly, but then a frown formed as she said, "He's smart. Johns is too cocky."

Wash snorted and said, "According to Riddick, he's not the only one."

Taking a shallow breath, Zoe commented, "And he's not far off the mark. But he's biding his time and I get the feelin' it won't be long before that time comes."

The sunshine washed out most of disturbance of the abrupt meeting, but the convict's presence lingered. Zoe's words held an undeniable truth that neither was willing to share with the survivors.

And then it occurred to Wash.

He bit down a grin until he had it just about suppressed. But it spilled out into his voice as he mentioned casually, "Wait 'till River gets a load of him."

Zoe stopped in her tracks as her mind ran through all sorts of scenarios.

"As long as we're there when it happens, I can't see the problem."

But he knew she saw a storm brewing.

* * *

><p><em>Kindred<em>, she thought in reference to the land. Stripped bare and shining—just as she had been for years. Everything it was could not be hidden. She, too, was defined by the absence of; the topography was remarkable because it was empty and in that emptiness, it was prolific.

She was filled up and out with her surroundings: the lamentations of the dead, the desires of the living, and her sense of self could be distorted in the midst of too much chaos.

River felt more herself than usual in her current environment. Firefly was her home and her sanctuary without a doubt. The ship took her into its arms and shrouded her with humming warmth and little secret nooks.

But here, there no was no Simon watching her with his worried eyes and his ready syringes. The pressure to be insane prompted her breaks and her strange fervor to dance with weaponry. There was no Mal wondering when she'd finally crack and ruin the operation (being, in his eyes, everything). There was no Kaylee sweet as sunshine, but wary as an alley cat when out of her comfort zone.

There was no role to play in the dysfunctional family she proudly called her own and, in that, there was freedom.

Zoe and Wash kept her at a respectable distance while making themselves available to her and she enjoyed the relationship.

She concentrated until she could feel them in her head all cozy and near. She skipped her way back to the impromptu camp made out of wreckage, kicking up dirt in transparent splashes and generally pleased despite the impending doom they would soon be facing.

Life was a series of merciless events and euphoria had to be snatched up greedily and fearlessly, and River saw the moment too clearly to resist: the brilliance of three suns, dust skirting her ankles, her skin tanning by the minute, and her sheer pink dress reflecting the light.

Nothing could have been more perfect or more brief.

"River," Zoe greeted as she reached them, giving her the acknowledgement she would never ask for, "Any luck?"

"I found an elephant graveyard," and after spying the look on Wash's face added, "Literally. The skeletons are sleeping in the desert, drying ivory bone and old lace. They were gobbled up by…something loud and high, flying beasts. There is too much noise to hear anything else. The spirits of the dead mostly wail, not give helpful information."

She sighed deeply, her moment having passed and the weight of their lives having returned.

"Alright, so you found the remains of big dead mammals eaten alive by huge winged predators and we're…next?" Wash asked dryly, not very surprised at the dawning sense of familiarity considering he'd had his pterosaur take down his triceratops countless times.

"Do you know a way out?" Zoe prompted.

Zoe wanted to keep their eyes on the goal, which was invariably getting off the deathtrap they'd been stranded on.

River gave a chilling giggle, a momentary lapse in her somewhat-clarity, "There's no way out of hell," and watching the young blonde pilot walking from what she sensed was man in a makeshift cage.

Suddenly interested, she switched gears, pointing toward the confused shaken pilot, "Ask her."

Zoe and Wash tensed upon realizing exactly where she was headed and exactly how much she was disregarding their thoughts on the matter. But they couldn't expose themselves to any scrutiny whatsoever. As long as River was discrete and didn't make a big deal out of being hell-bent to get into the convict's cage, they'd allow it. For now, they'd have to distract the Hunter-Gratzner's pilot from wondering what kind of girl it took to want to meet a murderer.

_He's insane…dangerous…menacing…what a dick_, Carolyn was thinking just as a slender-limbed girl in an airy pink dress floated by. She'd seen her briefly after the crash and felt the sting of almost having killed an innocent. Long brown hair, doe eyes, and delicate wrists that she'd almost caused to burn up in the atmosphere in what would have been a very painful, very horrible death.

The people she'd just left walked up to her mid-wince.

Wash guessed what was on her mind and ended up half-right, "Met our resident psycho?"

"He's infuriating," Fry answered shortly, "But I bet he can help get us the fuck off this thing."

Zoe agreed, "He certainly could. I've known a lot of criminals, and he's more the self-serving type than the massacre-without-a-reason type."

"Still," Wash chimed in skeptically, "I wouldn't call him a lamb."

"That's name's reserved," Zoe replied stoically before turning her attention to Fry and holding out a confident hand, "Zoe Washburne."

Clasping Zoe's hand, she said, "Carolyn Fry. I know we're all trying to find an escape," and she gestured ahead of them and into the distance with her chin, "There's some sort of settlement or camp out there, abandoned. The two of you want to come with me to explore?"

Wash took the hand that had released his wife's and smiled, "Hoban Washburne. Call me Wash. The two of us, we're all about adventure, especially when there are bullets and near-dear experiences."

Fry smiled briefly, "We've come to the right place then."

Carolyn studied the couple as they walked, squinting at the sand turned bright and brilliant by the great illumination. They were a funny pair. A woman who walked like a soldier and a man in a Hawaiian shirt.

"Don't get us, huh?" Wash asked easily, "She's like a knife and I'm more of a spatula, I know, but there's some pretty serious chemistry here."

Zoe flashed her white teeth in a smile and explained, "I'm attracted to bad analogies."

"I also don't get," Fry began carefully, "the girl you were with. Is she your niece?"

Wash and Zoe exchanged a look that said, in the span of three seconds, _let's improvise_.

_Half-truths it is_, Serenity's pilot cheered in his head, _something I'm good at_.

Zoe intertwined her fingers behind her back fearlessly and said, "No. She's the sister of one of our crew members who wanted to visit a friend. We told our captain we'd drop her off on our way to Venus, the resort planet."

Which notably wasn't saying: No. She's the traumatized tortured sister of the doctor who broke her out of a highly illegal, highly dangerous government program. We decided to take a break from our life of occasional crime and promised to drop River off to visit one of our friends, a Companion. Oh, and she's a fugitive constantly on the run for her life. We're on a second honeymoon, the two of us, because the first one took place on a ship captained by a man who couldn't bear to look at our ring fingers for a few months.

Wash felt that his beloved spouse had removed the fun parts, but for the sake of their relative safety, he approved.

Softening under the cool but amiable demeanor of the soldier and the goofy smile of her husband, Fry relaxed her tense muscles and looked into the warrior's eyes, "_This_ couldn't have been on your itinerary."

The incorrigible pilot raised his brows and pursed his lips jokingly, "I'd say it's right on schedule, considering our luck."

Carolyn had one last question and couldn't resist plowing ahead.

"You mentioned Riddick after I came out of his pseudo-prison. You have to know that that's where your crew member's sister was going. So why are we walking toward the camp when you could be dragging her away from there?"

Another exchange of glances.

Wash spoke, "River's got a sense for danger and how to avoid it if it becomes a threat."

_Or_, he didn't add, _she's a sneak who knew we didn't want her meeting him and alone and jumped at the opportunity once he realized the convict existed and their feelings about it._

_Or_, he didn't add, _she annihilates true threats_.

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><p>Riddick, eyes full of light; Riddick, darkeye, they'd called him in the pits of Butcher Bay.<p>

The Riddick between then and now was twice as deadly and better equipped to handle the situation he'd found himself in. Namely, he was chained to a bar and needed only the correct amount of time to pop his joints out of socket and slip out, silent as a lynx.

He calculated his odds and was already taking off the cuffs when he stilled and sensed someone coming closer with a smell of burning leaves and purity and chimes.

Something familiar and foreign all at once, catching on the frayed threads of memory he'd shoved, submissive and mute, onto its back and into the heavy recesses of his mind.

She smelled like smoke and absolution and he moved quickly into the shadows to size up the one who'd almost ruined his escape.

Cautious steps caught his attention and held it as the swirling sheer material of a dress shone in the patches of sunlight filtering into the room. Slim limbs in the midst of flimsy fabric and lean Achilles heels which tapered into feet which heard the ground, unobstructed by any shoes.

He was unable to feel trepidation, but there was something in him that wanted to know what she'd do, what she'd say, and how she'd respond to the place he was supposed be.

The tips of her mahogany hair lifted as she walked to the center of the room, where he'd been kept. Her feet firmly planted on the floor, she lifted her arms, stopping once and looking crucified and then once more when she'd stretched until her arms hung high and her wrists hung limp.

The position he'd been in seconds before.

Closing her eyes, she said, "I can hear you. Your mind, there's a great big lock on it."

He swept up from behind her in the time it took to blink, leaning in to scent her more effectively.

"No one in here but you and me, so I'm thinking you're talking about me. And you know what? It's not nice to enter someone's head without permission. And it's not polite to forget to introduce yourself."

"River," she said, "Riddick the soon-to-be fugitive, how much does freedom sting?" she asked, gesturing to her shoulders as if she could feel the ache in his.

He trailed his calloused thumb over the point of her shoulder and she flash-backed to her nail treading a path over the animal bone. He was fast, silent, amused, curious, and bemused.

And underneath that, there was a breathtaking fury.

And underneath that, there was emptiness.

She felt sated and wanted his answer. Charismatic. He held the power to sway if he so chose. He had to understand that she wasn't normal now. He had to realize that she knew things. And they were things that people would and had killed for, and they were things that he could covet and try to take.

But he didn't.

"It's sweet," he told her, "Like a razor the jugular. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that kind of sweetness, would you?"

A beat and then, "A pen."

"Hmm," he deliberated, "Ran into something worse than me out there?"

She answered, "Worse than either of us, Ares," and she turned in a circle, slow and measured in her leisurely movements. She didn't mean to do anything except to see his face, and she didn't mean for him to interpret her actions any differently from how she intended them.

"You gotta lotta nerve, River," he said once her eyes met his goggles, "But, lucky for you, I'm in a good mood."

She traced the bottom set of lashes with the tip of her index finger and bit the inside of her mouth, "Did it hurt?"

"You gotta lotta nerve," he repeated, smirking, and he moved past her body and into the sun.

He didn't. He wasn't blind to her difference, but he had decided they were of no interest to him. He wanted out, he got himself out, and she was just the girl who knew when and how.

"You hunt," she whispered in the dark room, "For answers, memories, purpose. Escape. But your prey is right here, and it will equip you with a knife to save it when you return."

He was long gone and all she could think was that if he existed, there was hope for her. He lived in a world where he had been imprisoned and escaped and imprisoned and escaped and he would never give up.

His will had forced fate's hand to give him this chance on planet M6-117.

Riddick possessed a will to survive which had eclipsed everything that had ever attempted to subdue or control him; she could see it. She knew it in the way he had blocked the worst memories—not consciously, but blocked all the same.

The glimpses she' gleaned struck a chord in her, choked her up.

Scalpels in his eyes and unpolluted pain, the distinct taste of blood as he traded cigarettes he'd nicked from a guard for a procedure in order to endure his time among the shiners, grotesque humanoids born with the ability to see in the dark in one of the prisons to which he's been banished.

They were the same creatures that had quickly recognized Riddick as a threat, a big one, and the one way to survive them would have been getting the surgery. To do that, he'd trusted a stranger with his eyes, his priceless tools.

He had taken the gamble, and it had worked.

She didn't know what to make of him except that she wanted to understand. Wanted to empathize. Wanted to confirm what she thought might be under his eyewear.

She followed the path he'd taken outside and recognized the shapes of her companions and the lady pilot returning from somewhere, most likely the camp she'd spotted near the graveyard.

River hadn't decided on the blonde yet. Fry was an exceptionally smart woman with a self-preservation instinct a mile long. River could respect that, absolutely. She'd injured and maimed and killed to escape her captivity and those blue hands, the color of heartache and torture.

Of turned cheeks and endless abyss.

But Fry would have sacrificed them all for no reason other than not wanting to die and that was something River couldn't accept.

For now, she'd keep her mouth shut to the survivors. She planned to tell Zoe and Wash as soon as she got them alone; she was learning that trust meant divulging information and it was a hard-earned lesson.

When they got close enough, she simply said, "He's gone."

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><p>"He what?" asked Johns, gritting his teeth and feeling the ecstasy rushing through his veins fighting against his rapidly rising temper.<p>

"He escaped," Fry repeated, her even voice serrated, "Gone. Vamoose. He's out there. What are you going to do about it?"

"The first thing I'm going to do is finish my wine," Johns said and he gulped it down.

"Then," he threw the glass onto the chunk of ship he stood upon while ignoring Paris' protests, "I'm going to smash my glass."

Sweeping past her, he finished, "And now I'm going to track that prick's sneaky ass down and nail it to the floor."

"You think we should try to find any anger management books back at the research camp?" Wash suggested, pointing in the direction they had recently come from.

"He soars above rationality, no strings attached to pull him down to reason," River explained, "Let the wings dissolve first. Let Icarus plummet."

Wash opened his mouth and then shut it, his teeth clicking audibly, "I lost that one. I lost that one bad."

River had long since figured out his game and encouraged it, his special link to her, and so she said, "I would call it a…tactical retreat."

And she proclaimed victory in her head as said man's mouth kicked up high on both sides and Zoe gave her a smile for her efforts, being very familiar with humoring her him.

Before any response could be made—including the confusion that Fry was obviously experiencing—Shazza, Zeke, Jack, and the Chrislams made their way over.

Zeke was a blunt sort of man who communicated plainly and thoughtlessly, "The murderer's out?"

River knew to be quiet for the conversations that required a gentle touch between her group and the outsiders. She was aware of how easily she could put someone on their guard.

Plus, Wash had nudged her with his shoulder as she opened her mouth to respond.

"Yes," Zoe said smoothly, drawing attention away from the subtle interaction between her crew, "About half an hour ago. He's made no attack on any of us yet, though we should remain alert."

Shazza took a step closer to them, a capable looking woman with the same direct nature as her husband, "Should we expect an attack?"

"Not as far as I can tell," Zoe said, "He's looking for a way off this rock like the rest of us. And unless that escape includes killing us, he's not interested."

"How comforting," Paris piped in, having walked up right after they'd begun talking, "Living on a madman's whims."

"It's better than not living at all," the oldest and most respected Chrislam said, "We should rejoice in the present. We have legs, we have strength, and we have the tools to survive."

"That's the spirit," cried Wash, watching Paris roll his money-hungry eyes with great amusement, "Rejoice in the now, not the imminent and terrifying soon-to-come!"

"What we should be more worried about is what's coming," warned Fry and everyone's gaze turned toward her, "We headed up to that old base we'd spotted after landing. Scientists and miners had set up camp there and built the place. According to their data, an eclipse is about to knock out the light of the three suns for a month and getting off will be practically impossible."

"Is that the only problem?" asked the holy man, spying something in her expression that did not bode well.

"For now, yes," admitted Fry, "But the situation has gone from bad to worse and I don't know what to expect. The best thing to do right now is to keep doing what we're doing. We should go looking for water. And someone needs to bury the dead. Who can stomach it?"

Zeke stepped up instantly, "I intend to pull my weight around here and it needs to be done. Go find us water."

Fry nodded, "I'll catch up to Johns. Let's head out."

In the noise it took to disperse, Zoe nabbed the chance to murmur into River's ear, "We'll talk soon about, among other things, discretion."

"Acceptable," she deigned.

When Zoe gave her a look, she giggled and watched the seconds it took for Serenity's second-in-command to comprehend her teasing.

* * *

><p>Riddick's hand drifted over the desk of a long-dead researcher. Their lives had ended violently on a planet with nothing to offer for the sake of mining. And for the discovery of the very animals that had slaughtered them.<p>

The planet was registered as M6-117, but what was its true name to its former inhabitants?

Written in loopy cursive was one word: _Hades_.

His chuckle rang out low and loud in the darkness.

Perfect.

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><p>1. Wash is alive. Hurrah! But for real. It's my party and I'll resurrect my favorite deceased characters if I want to. And, oh, I want to. When I thought of writing this crossover (swayed by the ultimate and delicious pairing of a messed-up girl and a messed-up man), I knew that I couldn't have River be stranded without some the crew or with anyone but the dynamic duo that is a simple (ass-kicking) pilot and his simple (crazy beautiful, crazy strong) wife. They also seem like the sort to give River the distance she needs to cope. Watching the show, I always got the sense that the constant worrying and expectation sometimes prompted her breakdowns.<p>

It's so easy to get comfortable in a role when people expect you in it.

2. Not to say that River doesn't have issues and isn't affected by them. Because that's not even remotely true. Honestly, she's still standing and trying to live her life and I find that amazing. Strange bird, that one, but she's resilient.

Which is why I really think she'd admire Riddick's strength. She really values the will to live because it is so present in her and she struggles with living even as she wants it. I mean, he was born with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, alone and in a goddamn dumpster, because some idiot decided genocide would be a good counter to a prophecy foretelling his death at the hands of a Furyan male. Good job on that one, Necromonger.

3. Johns is a bit of an asshole in this chapter because in the middle of a huge high and being interrupted with bad news is enough to make any addict a little nasty. He can be nice and charming when Fry catches up to him. He might have calmed down by then.

4. I also think the fact that Riddick has repressed his memories of _who_ he is, he can really identify with River's confusion over _what_ she is. And in life, it's rare to find someone who can truly empathize with your situation. It's profound and it's scary and I want this story to be treated like that. Both Riddick and River are trying to figure things the hell out. River's a young woman now whose sanity she continues to piece together after having thousands if not millions of dead people constantly screaming in her head. Riddick keeps getting thrown into prisons for something he may or may not have done wrong (not that we ever really know what that is). There's gotta be a good reason he's an anarchist after having served in the military, alright?

5. And when they first met, I wanted it to be soft and understated. This is an exercise in writing for me. At first, I thought I needed abundant amounts of darkness and chilling and haunting and horror. And I love and want those things. But that's not the beginning and end of who these characters are and what they're capable of. So I've stop underestimating them.

And, also, if Riddick hadn't of been in such a damn good place mentally after having escaped from Johns' cuffs, he might have gotten more aggressive with River. He's a survivalist first, after all. But River looks fairly harmless, so I went for, to me, a funner route than violence.

Can't show your hand too soon or you lose the game by rushing it.

6. Oh, and messing with the timeline of the plot, as of now, is only happening to better assimilate the additions to the PB-verse.


	3. Under the Skin

**Chasm**, Chapter 3: Under the Skin

**Disclaimer**: I feel affection and respect for these characters in my clavicles and in between my knuckles and in the points of my elbows, but I don't own them. I don't want to; they're a rambunctious lot, for sure.

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><p><em>It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.<em>

Franz Kafka

* * *

><p>Carolyn Fry couldn't remember ever having been in such a situation in her life. Her plan had been simple, foolproof. She would be a docking pilot and coast through life as easily as a ship cutting through the black.<p>

Having grown up in a foster home on a planet of no pressing significance, she'd only ever wanted to be away. Be out. Escape and bask in the loveliness she found out in space.

And somehow, it seemed to her that every single choice she'd ever made had sent her hurtling uncontrollably to the cracking surface of this place. Now that she was here, she couldn't imagine not having reached this point.

Somehow, she'd crashed into perhaps the most important event in her life, her biggest turning point, a hazardous feeling rising in her stomach and permeating her lungs and her breath. She couldn't shake the feeling that M6-117 would unmake her bones and she would be helpless to stop the process.

Her instinctive fear of her own feelings of foreboding and the anger flowing strong through her veins at the temper tantrum of the lawman carried her to him. He stood, one broad hand on the rib of one of the huge mammalian skeletons, staring into the distance and the prolific rays of three suns.

Having reached him, she watched him watch the sky for a silent moment and then asked, "What was that?"

Johns heaved a sigh, knowing how to cut his lies and lace his words, and said, "Carolyn, do you know how long I've been chasing Riddick?"

He turned his head and his body followed, slow as his drifting high, and upon receiving no answer continued, "Eight months. I've chased a psychopath for eight months, fast but never fast enough. Smart but never smart enough. The casualty of my catching him…a child died before I could cuff him. And now he's out again."

She leaned heavily against the bones, her shoulder blades touching ivory ribs and something about it felt hypnotic. Felt like a dream she'd forgotten but treasured. Suddenly, all of her feelings seemed muffled as if they were passing through the thick fabric of many veils.

Carolyn said, "I don't know what to say."

"Not much to say about sociopaths," Johns replied, kicking up dirt. By her lax pose, he could tell she'd forgiven his momentary lapse in temperament.

An emotion flickered across her face, somewhere between confusion and resistance, and she said, "I thought you called him a psychopath."

"I did," Riddick's jailor told her without a hint of hesitation, "And most criminals fall into one category, but Riddick, he's a special case. Psychopaths want to watch the world burn. Sociopaths see the opportunity to destroy in every individual person."

This time, they watched each other; Carolyn's face golden with light as shadows washed over Johns' like the tide.

"And Riddick?" she breathed, words damp with shock and terror and a numb sort of acceptance, an expectant anticipation.

He plucked his cap off of his head and slid it onto hers, adjusting it for a few seconds before nodding approvingly and letting his hand fall.

He smiled a little and to her it spoke of the exhaustion of sleepless nights spent polishing guns.

He said, "Riddick lives for one thing: to make God bleed."

"What does that mean?"

"He'll make sure to take away your faith before he takes your life. He'll feed on your hope just to watch the light die in your eyes and then he'll slit your throat."

Carolyn's existence had never been perfect or ideal. She'd had her fair share of heartbreak from failed relationships to the revelation that without any family, without any real friends, she was alone in the universe.

But the enormity of the ugliness that Johns was proposing was incomprehensible to her. She had no naivety about the goodness of people—she'd encountered her fair share of greedy liars and had proven herself to be one of them by nearly being responsible for the loss of an entire load of passengers, but to think that one body could contain all of the cruelty he was suggesting didn't quite match up with her understanding of the man named Riddick.

He was a criminal, sure. But completely heartless?

Johns picked up on her inner struggle and thought it best to leave her to stew on his last words on his wayward prisoner. He thought it might be time to change the subject, moving fluidly from the morals of his bounty to his suspicions about her role in their survival so far.

"Hey," he prompted her to turn her attention back to him, "what'd Owens mean? 'Bout not touching that switch?"

As if a dam had burst, Carolyn was bombarded with the ferocity of her guilt and her confusion over the murderer on the loose and her strange connection to the man in front of her.

If she were to look back later, she might have said it was the illusion of trust that had her admitting what had really happened, but deep down, she knew she wanted a confessor.

She wanted redemption.

"You can't tell anyone, Johns, not a damn soul."

He didn't smile in return, in assurance, and maybe that cinched it for her.

"I swear on my badge," he replied solemnly with the knowledge that his badge, picked off the body of a real law enforcement agent off planet Lucresia three years back, meant absolutely nothing.

"Owens was at his best during the crash. I was at my worst. He stopped the docking pilot from dumping all 50 of you."

"And the docking pilot was…" he trailed off, not really needing confirmation other than the wretched shine of her eyes.

"Do you really need to ask?" Carolyn returned, refusing to flinch away from her guilt.

Johns didn't speak for several heartbeats.

She licked her chapped lips and asked, "Does that make me a sociopath or a psychopath?"

He saw it, her question, as a chance to solidify her trust in him.

He said, "That makes you a scared person who almost made a mistake. It makes you human."

She exhaled shakily, "Oh."

And then a man screamed, loudly, as if he were being torn apart.

* * *

><p>Riddick bore his imprisonment with the poise of a man under fire and accustomed to it. Johns hadn't been gentle in the securing of his captive, hadn't even been in the mood to gloat. 'Course, that could have been his unmistakable high clouding his arrogant nature, the belligerent fuck.<p>

But, all things considered and according to what Riddick had found out, he was no safer out there than in here. This was obviously not his first choice (his first choice would be a small ice planet where he'd never have to look at another human being again), but it would do.

It had its benefits.

"You know something," Carolyn Fry told him with absolute certainty. She could see it plain as day in face; his expressions and demeanor were now not merely guarded, but smugly so.

For one thing, entertainment came to him.

He couldn't open his eyes. A few well-aimed punches from Johns had deliberately broken the lenses of his goggles before they'd been stripped off and flung onto the floor, just out of his reach. Seemed to him that junkie asshole was feeling a bit vindictive after being reminded that he'd made a huge mistake which had almost cost him his b—

He cocked his head to the side, playfully, "What makes you say that?"

She took two bold steps in his direction, though he could tell she'd deliberated over them since she'd stepped into his cage, since she'd worked up the nerve to enter and then worked up the nerve to speak.

"Call it women's intuition," she spat sarcastically, "You escaped and _came back_. Johns said you shimmied out of one of the big Slams and you sure as fuck didn't turn tail then. And you didn't make a huge effort to run once everyone heard Zeke scream."

She was bold and blonde. Pretty enough. Pretty desperate, too, like she could scent the mounting jeopardy in the air.

"So that means…" he smirked, drawing out the interaction for the hell of it. He knew what was coming. She didn't.

Fry's face, feminine and ragged, turned to stone.

"That means," she intoned evenly, "that whatever it is you saw in that pit made you realize one thing: being out there or in here makes no difference."

See, he liked that she just assumed he wouldn't make a mistake after he'd ditched Johns. Because if she was convinced of his invincibility and his intelligence, then every one of those miserable bastards out there believed in it.

And that was more powerful than the truth.

He should have moved. He should have fled. He'd crept up on the free settler dumping bodies, intended to observe a minute or two and then move on, but then the corpse of a woman had rolled off the top. She'd landed in a heap at the edge of the pit, one arm falling into the hole in the side of the mass grave up to her shoulder and without warning, something had pulled her body in and released a snarl he'd never heard before.

Not something. Oh, no. The scientists called them "bioraptors" in their notes.

And he hadn't fled. More than anything, he'd wanted to understand the creatures he'd only read about. They couldn't enter the light without burning, the notes read, but if that was the case, why was everything on this fucking planet dead and dried out as a husk?

Why weren't the scientists still puttering along on this godforsaken ground? Why was the journal he'd nicked from one of the more sentimental researchers so unsettling by the time he'd reached the last page?

His curiosity had given him pause and he'd paid for it. He'd even dropped the journal in his struggle with the merc.

Simple. Stupid. But she was right, he'd concluded free or not, dead was dead was dead. And something was going on here.

His animal side, the one that never slept, told him so.

"Give me my goggles if you want answers," he replied after minutes of contemplation. He could enjoy the power struggle between them and gain minimal protection for his eyes if he played his cards right.

And besides indiscriminate murder, there wasn't much else to do in the Bay besides enjoy a round or two of poker.

Fry snapped back, "Why should I do anything for you?"

Riddick laughed briefly, incredulously, wondering if she'd appointed herself group diplomat or if everyone else was brain dead.

"Last time I checked, pilot," he reminded her, "you were looking for information. Which I have."

She didn't do anything but glare at him.

Sensing her weakening, he drove the knife through her ribs a tiny bit more.

"You got to lock me up to feel safe. But you don't feel safe. Don't feel protected. You're scared of me, of those suns, of your instincts, and of what I'm going to tell you. You don't want to know, but you have to. I'm chained to the goddamn wall and I'm more relaxed than you. I just want to ask—"

"Shut the fuck up, Riddick," she yelled, abrupt and shattering exquisitely, "Just shut up!"

But he wouldn't relent. Not when he was so close.

"I just want to ask you one thing, Carolyn. Which one of us, do you think, is more convinced that we're all going to die?"

He watched with interest as, through the veil of her short hair over her bent head, a tear ran over her grimy cheek.

"Your eyes," Fry whispered, "If I'm going to bargain with you and if I'm going to return your goggles, I'm going to look you in the eye first."

When Riddick didn't say anything back, she hesitated and then took a step forward.

* * *

><p><em>Like lightening. <em>

River's interest piqued, she tuned out Wash's words.

"I said," Wash repeated, realizing a stray thought had caught her curiosity, "No fives! Go fish."

Zoe, who had appointed herself referee because her husband couldn't play an honest game of Go Fish if he tried, decided to supervise the game as she read the journal River had picked up in the wake of Riddick and Johns'…tussle.

She didn't need the psychic member of her crew to tell her that Riddick had snatched during a visit to the mining base. She, Wash, and the pilot had only walked the perimeter before she and her husband felt the need to return to the increasingly stable but still erratic member of her pseudo-family.

"What'd you hear, River-honey?" she asked, serene as an undisturbed lake as she cracked open the book, one hand supporting it on the spine and the other idly flipping pages.

River gave a slow, small smile and sighed, "Like lightening," she answered, "I knew it."

A full-blown grin startled Wash as he looked up and met her eyes, "I knew it!"

Before he could ask what the last ten seconds of his life meant and if he was better off not knowing, she stood up easy as curling smoke, threw the cards on the make-shift table they'd been playing on, and calling behind her as she disappeared, "No fours! Go fish!"

Wash opened and closed his mouth a few times and finally decided, in a rare moment of reflection, to remain quiet.

"Hmm," Zoe's full lips quirked, "So maybe playing a game based on luck and hiding your thoughts and, subsequently, your hand with a genius psychic wasn't the best idea?"

Wash raised a hand to his chest and lifted his chin, proclaiming, "Not the best idea, but the bravest. With the odds stacked against me, do I surrender? No! Not everyone is able to do the things I do, sweetcakes."

Provoked into a chuckle, she shot back, "Not many would want to," and her eyes widened as she reached the last page, "Wash, come here. Take a look."

Wash rose and reached her within two steps. He furrowed his brow as he tried to interpret the erratic handwriting.

"Someone picked up the written word late in life. And didn't use their hands."

"No," Zoe said, turning randomly to a page in the middle journal where perfectly legible cursive lay taunting them, "Someone was terrified."

They spent a handful of seconds looking into each other's eyes, sorting through feelings and plans and resolutions. They could come out of this alive, maybe, or they could not.

At least it wasn't a new feeling.

"We've got to tell them, Zoe. When everyone heard Zeke's scream and found him at the edge of the body-pit watching Riddick creepily staring into the hole where River says the freaky monster ate that dead body, they assumed he was about to massacre everyone. You and I, we both know he was just checking out the damage being done. Assessing the enemy. We've got to start planning," he said.

She nodded, fingers still running over the jagged script of the last entry in the leather-bound book, "And you know what else?" she asked, relinquishing the journal to tug at her curls, "We're gonna need Riddick."

Wash sighed, "Do I have to be the one to tell Johns because I have a coin if you're willing to flip on it."

Zoe clenched her jaw to keep from giggling in a most un-warrior-like fashion. At fourteen, she'd joined the resistance fighters. At eighteen, she'd accepted that she would likely be dead by twenty-five, victory or not. At twenty-five, she knew she'd never get married, never achieve that level of comfort or normalcy with anyone.

And here she was, adored by the silliest man alive.

She said, "Wash."

"Yes?"

"Wash?"

"What is it, my butterfly sunset Buddha-woman?"

Her laughter came in quiet huffs, her shoulders shook, and she managed to get out, "I _married_ you," and was helpless to the hilarity of his vaguely insulted expression.

* * *

><p>River ran swift and silent to the captive. She wasn't sure which thought propelled her forward more forcefully—the thought of seeing his eyes or speaking with him.<p>

The hope of being understood for the battered thing she was had fled as soon as Simon stopped speaking to her like a sister and more like a patient.

That he loved her was indisputable. That he would die trying to save her was definite. That he would crawl and beg and bleed for the restoration of her sanity was a promise he made to her every time he touched her.

But part of him, for all the affection and diligence, could never see her as she was and willingly dwelled upon who she had been. _Magnificent_, he'd murmur in his mind as he watched her pretend to sleep, _she had been so…magnificent. Bright. Vibrant. Too beautiful to remain untarnished in this fucking 'verse. _

There had come a day when he stopped connecting her to the girl she had been because the pain of the difference between then and now was too great for him to behold.

The girl, River Tam, and the woman, River Tam, moved with the same seamless grace and spoke with the same liquid voice and understood the same difficult mathematical equations, but they were the difference between a duckling and a swan. A sinner and a saint.

A hymn and a eulogy.

And most days, she couldn't tell which was then and which was now. The absence of the suffering of millions from Miranda made her progress look like sanity and usually, it was enough, but she knew coping without part of her brain meant learning a new way of living which hadn't yet been invented.

And River felt—not the way she felt thoughts and other people's bullet wounds and their painful memories, but the way she felt Before, the instinctive part of her instead of the Reader—that he could understand her if he let himself.

He was indomitable and riddled with wounds he had hidden from himself. He could escape from damn near anything and merely had to speak with a civil tongue to make goosebumps pucker on a person's arms. He hadn't shown the slightest interest in using her and he hadn't bothered to answer any of the questions she'd asked.

For the first time in her life, River burned with wanting.

For the first time since her innocence and her sense of self had been stripped away, she felt hope.

Contentment and anticipating flooded her system as she entered the room Carolyn Fry had left in a hurry, presumably to inform the others of the beasts Riddick had seen. Her intentions coincided with those of Zoe and Wash, and she wondered how exactly all that would play out.

But for now, she was here.

"Finally got bored out there?" he asked, managing to make his prison into a throne and his voice into a purr.

And so was he.

* * *

><p>1. This has been equal parts exhilarating and infuriating to write. I am absolutely in love with these characters, every single one of them. And they are so confused, so desperate to get out of their respective cages. The only one confident in his success is Riddick and his have the thickest chains. Physically, at least.<p>

2. I promise the talk between Zoe, Wash and River will happen next chapter! It will serve as sort-of a re-cap, I think, since I'm obviously diverting from the well-worn path here. Seems more fun this way. I really think the presence of these characters has affected the flow of Pitch Black in radical ways and there's still more to come. Makes me giddy just to think of it.

3. I did in fact leave out the scene with Zeke dying because I kept trying to write it and something someone told me once seemed to be on repeat in my head: If it's not fun to write, it probably won't be fun to read. Writing the Zeke scene just felt like going through the motions and I don't want to feel obligated to write something because that means it's not being done right.

Plus, I would rather him live because I feel like maintaining some sort of element of surprise for the characters. They are finding out, one by one, that all is not well on Hades (surprise!) and everyone possesses a different degree of understanding concerning our carnivorous underground friends.

4. Carolyn and Johns were fun to write; I wasn't sure about them until I realized how vulnerable Carolyn is right now and how much Johns is willing to exploit that. He's not a man who lies-he's worse. He's a man who tells you enough to make you feel safe and then he pulls the rug right out from under you and you fall on a shitload of thumbtacks.

5. Zoe and Wash are still beautiful.

6. River's thoughts taste like a choir mid-hymn. She's fluttery and tangled in knots and I love it.

7. Riddick has chosen not to reveal his thoughts on the matter just yet, which means a certain someone might be getting to him.

8. Memory is, I think, going to be unavoidable as a huge theme in this one. Riddick's got his repressed. River stumbles through hers. It's important to share your memories, even the bad ones, because it means acceptance from both ends. Ultimately, this is what I'm working towards. Also, Carolyn relies on Johns' memories of Riddick as she has none of her own, a decision she may end up regretting because he might just be hand-feeding her false ones.


End file.
